


You Are Haunting Me (No Matter Where I Sleep)

by ThisFragileGame



Series: Chronicles of A Victor [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisFragileGame/pseuds/ThisFragileGame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*Prequel to A THOUSAND SILHOUETTES DANCING ON MY CHEST*</p><p>It takes Finnick over a year to realise why Mags didn't want him to win; Johanna learns that the games never end the hard way and Haymitch wonders how he ended up with all of these children to look after when he's been living a life of celibacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PART ONE - Finnick

**Author's Note:**

> After seeing Catching Fire twice in a week, I've been getting so many Finnick and Johanna and Annie feels that I thought I might do this prequel on my other story, about Haymitch, Johanna and Finnick's stories before Katniss and Peeta. Even if this is a prequel of sorts, I'd still probably read 'Silhouettes' before this one, though you can do either, entirely up to you. Comment, kudos, whatever you like!

**PART ONE - FINNICK**

 

Finnick Odair doesn’t remember the first time he saw Annie Cresta.

He doesn’t remember when he fell in love with her either. He just sort of looked at her, and realised he did. She just crept up on him.

Annie was two years younger than him. He never saw her much in school. Never really saw her at all. She was rather nondescript, small and lithe. All limbs that really didn’t match the rest of her body and thin lips and tangled dark brown hair and bright green eyes, very much like his, only with less sparkle; he was informed from a very young age that there was something special about him, that his eyes shone with something lots of people liked to refer to as ‘charisma’.

He didn’t understand what it meant then. He didn’t understand that when he smiled or made jokes, adults and children alike gravitated towards him. He just knew it meant he got picked first for teams at school when they played games when he did all of these things so he did them often and he found life was easier.

The only defining feature about Annie seemed to be the fact that her skin didn’t have the golden sheen to it than nearly everybody in District Four had. For the amount of time he saw her on the beach, she should have been roasted by the rays of the sun, flawlessly tanned. But she wasn’t and that was strange but he didn’t think about it too hard.

Every time he saw her around school – it wasn’t often - she was always wearing the same quizzical expression, like the whole world confused her and she was constantly trying to figure it out. There were a couple of times where he thought about asking her, wanted to know what was so confusing to her. How she saw the world.

But then the moment would pass and he would forget all about Annie Cresta for days or weeks at a time. He told himself, he really didn’t care after all.

When he is fourteen, and he is reaped, he stands on that stage and tries to find the eyes of his parents in the crowd. Instead he finds Annie’s. Twelve year old Annie Cresta with her bright green eyes and that same expression he has wondered about since…..since who knows when.

Things change after that.

He doesn’t think about Annie when he is on the train or when he sits opposite Caesar Flickerman, the whole audience crowing his name like they love him.

He doesn’t think about Annie when he steps off the mined pedestal nor does he think about her when the shiny gold trident floats down to him, landing in the tight grip of his bloodied fingers.

He doesn’t think about Annie when the cannon signals the death of the boy from District Six and the voice he cannot see announces him as the winner of the 65th Hunger Games.

He just doesn’t think about Annie.

 

 

Mags swallows him in a hug when she sees him for the first time since they lifted him out. He lets her. She smells like the ocean, like home and it is comforting when compared to the odour of rotting flesh and blood and sweat that permanently invaded his nostrils during the eleven days he spent in the arena.

Eleven days. Felt like an eternity.

“Little boy,” she whispers to him, stroking his hair. “Why did you have to win?”

At the time, he has no idea what she means. How can she not be glad to see him alive? How could she not have wanted him to get back to Four?

In The Capitol, the name of Finnick Odair becomes worshipped. It is uttered in reverence, in admiration. He is only fourteen but everyone wants to sink their claws into him. Get a piece of the charming, tanned, bronze haired boy who struck down anyone who came near him with the deadly extension of his arm.

Mags tells him to play his part. To smile and charm like he had before the games so he does. And they love him for it. Adore him. When he goes back to Four, he is relatively left alone. The first few weeks are hectic though. Every kid he has ever shared a classroom with wants to be his best friend. Girls who snuck glances at him before completely throw themselves at him, offering to take him under the pier and help him forget.

It seems like a good idea in theory. Forgetting. But instead of agreeing, he just traps their chin with his fingers, leans in close with a smirk and tells them he’ll think about their offer.

His parents and younger brother and sister move in with him into the Victor’s Village, right across the way from Mags. He has never been close with either of his parents, having been taken for training for the games very early in his life once they discovered his natural talent with a trident. After that, Mags was more his family than them. They watched him from a distance, with careful eyes.

But if they weren’t close before, it’s like they’ve never met now. They are wary, cautious around him. He doesn’t really know what to do with himself around them so he passes time however he can. When Swan and Ella aren’t at school, he takes them for walks along the beach, watching them frolicking in the water. Barely nine Swan asks him why he can hear him yelling in his bed at night sometimes and Finnick just ruffles his little brother’s auburn hair.

Most days though he sits on the edge of the pier, fishing with the rod he and his father had made when he was little. He throws back most of the fish he catches but the ones he doesn’t, he debones with the tip of a spear, packing them to bring them back to his mother so she can cook them for dinner later.

Twenty six days after he won the games, Annie Cresta appears silently beside him, sitting next to him on the pier like she belongs there.

“My brother liked that girl,” she says conversationally, and Finnick has no idea what she is talking about until she adds, “Haley Strachen.”

His gut churns, thinking of his seventeen year old district partner. “Sorry,” he says, feeling like it is necessary to say even if he didn’t kill her. It was his idea though to separate from her after a couple of days, feeling like the brief allusion of alliance they shared needed to be over before he was forced to kill her. She died within hours of being on her own.

“Hmm,” is all Annie says back, shrugging and sliding off of the edge of the pier without warning. She goes spiralling towards the water and Finnick freezes against the railing, his hands tensed, her sudden movement rattling him. Everything rattles him after the games.

She lands in the water with minimal splash, sinking so far beneath the opaque water he cannot see her. He starts to freak out when she doesn’t resurface right away, panicking in a way that is most unlike him. He is nearly considering jumping in after her until she resurfaces, throwing her head back and gasping for air, her dark hair matted against her cheeks. She peers back up at him, staring at him with that quizzical expression of hers, almost like she expects him to follow her in.

But he doesn’t. He just looks down at her.

And she just flips onto her back and floats away, unreachable.

 

 

The victory tour starts a few weeks before his fifteenth birthday.

He doesn’t know what he expected. Maybe adoration or love like he received in The Capitol. Some clap but mostly everyone just stares at him with blank eyes, like they aren’t sure how to take him. Because he is the reason their tributes never came home. Why should they celebrate him, no matter how good looking or charming he is?

He stares into the eyes of the families whom the tributes he personally killed.

Then he gets onto the train and cries in his bed like the child he is.

He celebrates turning fifteen on the way to Twelve, the last stop before The Capitol. Mags brings a frosted cupcake to his room on the train at midnight, and he stuffs the entire thing into his mouth to keep himself from choking out the words that have been clogging his throat for nearly a year.

The next day he smiles winningly at the crowd in Twelve, their eyes reflecting disgust. He pretends not to notice.

It is here that he meets Haymitch Abernathy for the first time.

“Happy Birthday!” says Haymitch, stumbling towards him after he had stepped off the stage. Finnick throws his hands out to steady the only living victor from Twelve, who grins down at him. “You old enough for a drink yet Odair?”

“He’s fifteen,” says Mags disapprovingly, but there is a slight smile on her lips as she wraps an arm around Finnick’s broad shoulders, edging him away from Haymitch.

“So he is old enough then,” guffaws Haymitch loudly.

Mags scolds him good-naturedly, protective as always of her little Finnick. But later that night as they are about to board the train to head to back to The Capitol for the grand banquet Snow always holds in the Victor’s honour, Haymitch stuffs a bottle into Finnick’s coat.

“Don’t tell Mags,” he says gruffly.

So that night, instead of crying or vomiting or thinking about the people he has killed, Finnick drinks himself to sleep.

And it feels good.

 

 

A couple of months later, he is called up to mentor Four’s tributes alongside Mags. The girl, sixteen year old Taya Hamilton tries to win his favour by touching him under the breakfast table. No matter how many times he pushes her hand away, she doesn’t seem to understand that flirting with him won’t increase her chances.

Of course he’ll do what he can for her. It’s his job as a mentor. But to blatantly favour one tribute over another, to deliberately send one to their death to help the other is something he can’t do.

He lies awake all the time and wonders if Mags chose him over Haley. How she did it. What made his life worth more than hers?

Both Taya and the male tribute are dead within a week. Taya loses her limbs one by one until they finally send the hovercraft in to pick up her pieces. Finnick loses his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

He’s still required to stay in The Capitol afterwards, attend parties, schmooze with the richest citizens who just love to hang onto his arm and ask him what he’s wearing and how he gets such a perfect tan.

“How old are you Finnick now darling?” asks a pink haired woman at one stage.

“Turned fifteen in March,” he answers, slightly confused at the question.

“Damn,” she says, turning to her friend. “Another year.”

He doesn’t get the chance to ask her what she means by that. By the time he figures it out on his sixteenth birthday, sitting across from Snow in his office, it’s too late.

 

 

"I hear your brother is showing quite the promise. Four might have another Victor in a couple of years."

 

 

He finally realises why Mags didn't want him to win.

 

 

Her nails are sharp against his skin, like knives, raking them down his chest.

“Oh Finnick,” she coos. “You’re so lovely. Such a prize. I’m so glad I get to have you first. You’re going to be a legend.”

Finnick swallows the bile in his throat, closing his eyes and trying desperately to erase the image of Annie Cresta’s quizzical expression from his mind.

When he opens them, he is Capitol Finnick with his devilish smirk and bedroom eyes. “Oh honey,” he says seductively. “No one’s ever going to forget the name Finnick Odair.”

 

 

Mags has a stroke the next night.

His mother calls him to tell him in the early hours of the morning, as he is curled up in The Capitol alone, in unfamiliar sheets, wishing his skin smells like salt instead of the sickening aroma of perfume. She is still alive but the damage to her brain has caused her to lose most of her ability to speak.

He gets on the train as soon as the sun has risen fully in the sky and is home in Four the next morning. The first thing he does is go to Mags’ side, not even bothering to see his parents or siblings. Honestly, he doesn’t want to look them in the eye. They don’t feel like a part of him anymore. Swan is eleven and already showing far more promise than him with his trident while Ella’s nimble fingers can already expertly tie six perfect knots in one length of rope. He doesn’t want to watch them grow up into unrecognisable versions of themselves. He doesn’t want to watch them volunteer for the games or be thrust in before they are ready like he was.

He sits next to Mags in the little District Four hospital, holding her withered hand tightly. She doesn’t have any family except him. He doesn’t really have anyone else but her.

“How’s she doing boy?” Finnick spins around in his chair, stunned to see a weary looking Haymitch Abernathy in the doorway. Haymitch, here in District Four, far from where he belongs amongst the coal and poverty of Twelve.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mags called me last night,” he says, standing at the end of Mags' bed. “Begging me to look after you.”

Finnick frowns. “Why would she….." He freezes. "You don’t think she knew, did you? That something was going to happen to her? You don’t think Snow could have –“

“ – made her have a stroke? Seems unlikely. Then again, I’ve learned not to underestimate Snow and The Capitol." He blinks his bleary eyes. "She probably just sensed something was going to happen so she called me. Our bodies have a way of warning us when something is wrong."

Haymitch stays with him in her room for the rest of the night and Finnick somewhat appreciates the company, even if Haymitch twitches in his sleep, his hands clenched around a rather large knife, muttering to himself.

 

 

“You’re lucky they don’t have anything to blackmail you with,” Finnick says in the early morning when the two of them stir at the sound of Mags slurring in her sleep.

“Lucky?” Haymitch scoffs. “My entire family were dead in their beds when I got home from the games. My girl’s blood covered my sheets and her heart wasn’t in her chest anymore.” Haymitch takes a long swig from his flask, until it is drained. “Sometimes I think they ripped out mine too. Not sure how I've been walking around all this time without it.”

Finnick goes back to sleep.

 

 

He tells his parents to move back to their old house, commands them really. He wants to be in the Victor’s Village alone, without them hovering, pretending they care. They comply easily and it makes him bitter to realise that they probably don't care that much about staying with him now. After all, they barely know each other anymore, he's a Capitol boy, the beloved victor who doesn't have time for them anymore.

She finds him on the pier again and she's different since he saw her - fourteen now, a little taller, her dark brown hair a little less tangled. She’s sort of pretty, plain compared to everyone he sees in The Capitol or even in Four but she still has that curiosity about her, the one that intrigues Finnick so much.

“I heard about Mags,” she says. “Is she going to be okay?”

His throat tightens. “Think so.”

She sneaks her hand inside his, her rough, gnawed down nails scraping gently against his palm in a way that doesn’t make him cringe like that woman had. Her fingers curl around his, squeezing them tightly once, twice before withdrawing her hand and placing it back on her knee like nothing happened.

“You’re not fourteen anymore,” she says rather matter-of-factly and it stings to hear her say it like that. Of course he isn’t fourteen anymore. That is just reality. Everyone gets older.

But the way she says it implies he is a completely different person now than he was before the games.

And even if it is true, he is still feeling rather wounded when he says with as much bite as he can muster, “Well you’re not twelve anymore.”

“I know,” she replies, knocking her knobbly knees together. “Shame, isn’t it? How things change?”

Finnick looks sideways at her, hoping she is looking at him. But she isn’t and he realises the only time they have ever locked eyes was at the reaping.

He sighs. “Damn shame.”

 

 

He leaves Four the next day and he doesn't go home for a long time. His appointments increase and Haymitch stays with him in The Capitol. He waits up most nights until Finnick comes home, makes sure he eats, takes care of himself, doesn't do anything stupid. Finnick starts drinking more - easy to when you're around Haymitch - but he stops just as quickly as he started when he realises it does more damage. It takes the edge off for a little while but his nightmares get worse and worse so he stops and just lies awake in his bed, wishing he was still fourteen and Annie was still twelve and she was just some curious looking girl he saw occasionally around school instead of someone he can't get out of his head.

It feels like the best news ever then when Haymitch informs he can finally go home for a couple of weeks.

The first thing he does when he does is head down to the beach. Instead of sitting on the pier, he walks right down the sand bank. Without stripping down, he strides straight into the ocean, letting the low waves crash into his knees. He walks until it’s right up around his neck, walks until he is completely submerged and he wants the water to wash away the horror of the last five months, swallow him completely. And it's strange but he can breathe easier with the water in his lungs than he can normally.

When the pain in his chest gets to be too much, he emerges, coughing and spluttering, the salt stinging his eyes.

Annie Cresta is sitting on the sand, as if waiting at him, cross legged. She’s staring into her lap as he collapses in a panting heap beside her and they don’t say anything for a while. Annie traces patterns in the sand with her fingers and he watches her, thinking them random at first before realising she is drawing tridents.

“You spend a a lot of time in The Capitol,” she says softly. “Do you like it there?”

He thinks about lying but decides too quickly he doesn’t want to. Not to her. “No.”

“So why do you go?”

“There are some things that a victor just has to do,” he says carefully. "You have to do things you don't want to, be places you don't want to be."

“Sounds like a terrible life.”

His fists tighten in the sand. “It is sometimes.” He stares upwards at the stars that seem too close and then at Annie, who doesn’t meet his eyes. Why doesn’t she? “Wish I could just live in this moment," he says and he's thinking of the ocean and the wind and the sand under his fingers and Annie and he wants to hold all of it in the palms of his hands. "Forever.”

“I bet you say things like that to all the girls,” she says lightly.

Capitol Finnick takes over for a moment, filling his eyes, spawning the grin on his lips. “Only the ones I like,” he says smoothly.

Annie’s hand wipes away the picture of the tridents.

 

 

He comes back to Four shortly after his seventeenth birthday from his usual visit to The Capitol with his head full of secrets and imprints of both men and women’s hands on his skin. He heads straight to the pier, knowing somehow that she will be there, like they have some unspoken agreement, even if it has been six months since they were together on the beach.

And she is, dangling her feet over the edge, staring down at the water, pondering its depths. And he wonders how long she's been there.

He sits down next to her and neither of them acknowledge the other’s presence, and he finds that the silence engulfs him but it is the best kind of silence, because he isn’t thinking about the games or The Capitol. Just her. She fills the silence with just her body, fills the empty spaces in his head without even trying and he’s grateful that she invades him with the scent of her skin and sight of her hands and slope of her shoulders and light spattering of freckles that have sprouted on her cheeks while he's been gone.

A little later, he says, “I’ve never heard you say my name.”

A tiny little smile curls her thin pink lips. “Finnick,” she says simply, and this time she looks at him, the green of her eyes melding with his, and it's better than he's ever imagined, waiting for her to finally look at him with the memory of his name on her mouth. “Was it worth the wait?” she asks, breaking their gaze and looking back out towards the ocean.

He smiles to himself. “Yes.”

 

 

It's not too long before he's eighteen and she's sixteen and if he was normal, if he wasn't a victor, he might have already gone to Annie's father asking his permission to take her on a date. But even if he is eighteen and she is sixteen, he's not normal and he's never around and she always seems to be waiting for him but he knows it won't always be that way. She's going to grow up without him here in Four and he's always going to be caught in between, not sure where he belongs, trapped in the arms of those who claim to adore him but will never really understand why he can't sleep at night.

“Lots of rumours float around here about you,” she says, idly picking at her cuticles. “Have you dated every woman in The Capitol?”

“Pretty much,” he replies, refusing to add that it’s not only women who request his company. “What about you?”

Annie tilts her head to the side, deliberating her next words. Then she says, “I kissed Webb Hartung while you were gone. I sort of wished it was you.”

Finnick doesn’t tell her he that he frequently wishes the same thing about her with everyone who kisses him.

 

 

The District Four escort says, "Annie Cresta."

 

 

Finnick feels like he's going to vomit.

 

 

When they're finally alone on the train, Finnick sits there and there are a million things running through his head, a million things he wants to say to her.

He isn't expecting Annie to just turn to him and ask, “Are you going to kiss me now?”

“I want to.” So he does. He tangles his fingers in her dark brown hair and captures those thin pink lips of hers and she’s unsure and unskilled and her tongue clumsily tries to mesh against his but it’s good, because it’s not perfect. She doesn’t kiss like a Capitol woman. She kisses him like she’s the ocean – sloping, cresting against his mouth, tasting like salt and life. He's newly nineteen and this is the first kiss in his entire lifetime that has ever meant anything.

When he pulls back, pushing her hair away from her face, she whispers, “Can’t believe I had to wait to get reaped to get a kiss from you Finnick Odair.”

“Yeah I know,” he replies, brushing his thumb across her cheekbones. “Sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as I get years of them.”

He can’t make promises like that so he just kisses her again.

 

 

The little red envelopes keep showing up to his door, increasing in frequency. He tries to hide them from her, hide the way he disappears from dinner but little Annie Cresta who isn't so little anymore, who always wears that quizzical expression on her face, notices. He returns to the suite one night, and she's sitting on his bed like she belongs there, like she used to claim the spot next to him on the pier like her name had been carved into the word.

She has a way of just belonging in his life.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

His jaw clenches. “Out.”

“Those women…” she says, and she’s nodding in a way that makes him realise she knows everything about him. “….and you. Snow makes you…..”

“Yeah,” he says rather pathetically, and he feels like he's going to cry soon. His hands start to shake and he can't meet her gaze out of fear she has finally realised she's too good for him.

“You don’t belong to them,” she says eventually and he looks up, and her green eyes aren’t angry or sad like he thought they'd be. She just looks like Annie. “You belong to me.”

“Okay.”

Then she spends the rest of the night kissing away the memories of everyone who has ever touched him.

 

 

"I like kissing you," she says the night after the parade. Her face has been scrubbed clean of all of the makeup and she looks like his Annie, all awkward limbs and not quite tanned skin and dark hair that needs to be brushed. "And touching you," she adds shyly, her fingers dancing along his neck, feeling his pulse vibrate under her fingertips.

Finnick sighs against her skin. All he says back is her name.

 

 

He thinks about losing her in the arena. His nightmares become not about stabbing chests with tridents and phantom women and men touching him but blood bubbling from Annie's lips and lifeless green eyes and the lightly tanned skin losing all of its colour.

He thinks about losing her. But it's too hard.

So he stops.

He thinks about her winning instead.

But he has to stop that too.

He's not sure which possibility is worse.

 

He decides to just be happy. Just for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. He needs some sort of happiness.

 

 

"Don't do that," she says, as they step into the elevator, her skinny arms folded against her equally flat chest. She's trying to look angry at him, but it looks so comical on her because her features are far too soft for such emotions.

"Do what?" he asks, trying to take the situation as seriously as he can, even if he's fighting off the urge to grin. He steps forward towards her, like he's an animal stalking his prey, a small smirk on his lips.

"Act like Capitol Finnick around me," she says crossly. "Especially when I'm angry at you."

He takes another step closer, continuing the act, dropping his eyelids slightly. "Why are you angry at me?"

"You were supposed to coaching me. You were talking to me and she just came up and practically started undressing you in front of me. And you let her."

His mask drops, making way for raw disbelief on the face of the Finnick born and bred in the ocean. "I didn't _let_ her do anything," he says. "None of this ever my choice Annie. You are my choice. If I could, I'd take you back to Four right now, take you away from all of this. I'd run right now with you if I could. And I'll keep telling you, I'll keep telling you for as much time as we have together because you are my Annie."

Her mouth twitches ever so slightly, and he knows he has her.

"I belong to you," he whispers into her ear, flattening his body against hers, trapping her between the elevator wall and him. He places his lips lightly behind her ear. "Remember?"

Annie breathes harshly, unevely before twisting her head slightly to ask him out of the corner of her mouth. "Do you?"

In response, Finnick hits the emergency stop button on the elevator.

 

 

"You're going to be fine," he tells her, stroking her hair, hands running over every inch of her to sneak a touch he might never have again. "You're going to win and everything's going to be -"

"Don't lie to me Finnick," she says.

He kisses the tip of her nose. "Okay."

 

 

Having an alliance with the Careers eases Finnick's worries somewhat. She's not fragile, he knows that. She can make a decent fishook, especially after Mags' extra guidance. She knows how to fish and handle a spear and he knows from all of the years she spent with her grandmother - who operates as a healer in Four - that she'll be able to take care of minor wounds. But he dreads the moment that the arena makes her a killer, makes her just like him. He doesn't want her to know how it feels.

He works harder than he normally would to get sponsors. Not that he's ever really had to work for money, but he makes a conscious effort to smile and be happy and be Capitol Finnick because it's Annie and he can't even imagine the thought of her not coming out.

Annie survives the first three days and she's slightly dehydrated and slightly starving but she's still surviving. Finnick survives these days in a haze of women and men and secrets and words he doesn't mean. He does anything to distract himself, anything just to get enough money to send her some food in the arena. 

Someone offers him pills and he barely hesitates a moment before swallowing them with alcohol. He's tried not to drink since that night on the train on his fifteenth birthday because hey, wouldn't want to drink himself out of his good looks, that would be a shame now wouldn't it if Finnick Odair became undesirable. But he's so desperate not to feel anything and he keeps taking them until the world starts to spin.

He has no idea how he ends up on the tiles in his suite one night, Haymitch attempting to roll him across the floor with his foot.

"Haymitch," Finnick slurs, jumping to his feet. He tries to peel the District Twelve victor's shirt off of him. "You know, I've gotten so good at all of this. Men, women, doesn't matter anymore, nothing really matters -"

He’s not prepared for the way Haymitch’s fist meets his jaw so hard his head snaps back against the wall. He crumbles, his body caving in on itself and everything’s spinning and hurting and God, he just wants to be dead.

“Get your shit together Odair,” mutters Haymitch, shaking the pain out of his hand.

Finnick just groans. How is he supposed to do that without her?

 

Ario Hammond, Annie's fourteen year old District partner, a spindly little boy Finnick knew very little about loses his life right in front of Annie. He also loses his head in the process.

His blood rains onto Annie's face and she stands there frozen, bright red decorating her pink lips. She moves just as the behemoth District Three boy who just beheaded Ario aims for her, turning and running in the opposite direction, her arms flailing widly. She screams for days, hoisted up in the trees.

 

When the tidal wave hits, Finnick can see it in Annie's face how much she just wants the whole wave to take her with it.

But it doesn't. Annie's from Four and she knows how to swim, and when the water clears, she's the only one still breathing, clawing at demons that don't exist.

 

She is sitting in her bed when he first sees her, hands clamped tightly over her ears, muttering to herself. “What’s wrong with her?” he asks Haymitch.

“She’s just….she’s not right Finnick.”

He tells Haymitch that it doesn't matter. She's his Annie. He belongs to her.

 

 

He finds that the only way to bring her back to him is to whisper that he loves her and he's there for her. And he wonders how long he has loved her but decides it doesn't matter because he does, and he's in love with the quizzical little Annie Cresta and they can say she's gone mad now but he doesn't care.

 

In her sleep, she screams. And then whispers her love for him right after.

 

 

"It is rather unfortunate...about what's happened to Annie Cresta."

Finnick stares at his shoes. "I'll do anything. Just promise me nothing will ever happen to her."

Snow leans back in his chair. "I think we'll have to discuss you moving to The Capitol on a more permanent basis."

 

 

She's humming idly to herself when he enters her room, a tune he recognises well, one Mags used to sing to him when he couldn't sleep right after the games.

"Finnick?" she says, reaching for him like a child reaches for their parent in the night. He goes to her, laying down beside her on the bed and moving into her skinny arms, feeling every bone under his fingertips.

“Annie,” he whispers into her skin. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I am?” she says, rather dazed, her eyes wandering away from him. “Are we going to be together?”

“Of course,” he says, "forever and ever.” And it breaks his heart to lie to her, to promise her things he can never guarantee, no matter how badly he wants them.

“Why are you crying then?” she asks, lifting her fingers to wipe away his tears.

“Because I’m so happy Annie,” he says. “I’ll be yours forever. Just yours.”

“My Finnick,” she murmurs absentmindedly, and he kisses her forehead.

They hold each other until the sun rises, and Annie has to go back to Four.

For the night, he belongs to her.


	2. PART TWO - Johanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken me so long to get out, my internet wasn't working for a while and this part ended up being a lot longer than I thought it'd be. Hopefully the last part won't take as long though it'll probably be after new years. Anyway, here is Johanna's part. Enjoy!

**PART TWO - JOHANNA**

Johanna Mason doesn’t understand how people can be so stupid.

Case in point: everyone in District 7 is surprised when she comes home from the games, like they hadn’t expected her to be such a whiz with weapons or so conniving and ruthless and just _brutal_. It was like they suddenly forgot that she followed her father into the forest from the age of ten every day until she was reaped at seventeen, that she tailed him to the lumberyard because she loved to watch him work.

Forgot that they frequently saw her as a child chasing her older brother around the front yard with an axe in her hand, cackling wildly and joking that she would chop his head off, only to be scolded by her mother.

No, as soon as she was reaped, everyone seemingly forgot that. All they saw then was the small, wiry girl on stage, standing next to her giant of a district partner who outweighed her by at least twenty pounds, an eighteen year old boy whose father ran the lumberyard, whose arms and legs were like tree trunks themselves. And they all thought, maybe we'll have a winner this year. Maybe one of these poor children would make it back.

They weren't talking about her.

 

 

It wasn’t supposed to be a strategy, the weakling thing. It just turned out no one could tell the difference between hostility and fear. When she didn't want to talk, holed herself up in her room, they assumed she was afraid. She wasn't. She just couldn't be bothered with all of their shit.

But then she realised she could use it to advantage.

 

 

"Johanna," said Caesar, clicking his tongue sympathetically, "now the training score wasn't too good but I'm sure there's a fighter in there somewhere."

Johanna just stared at her hands, silent for a moment before she said in a quiet voice, "I don't know about that Caesar. I don't know."

 

 

Her district partner Miller promised they could be allies the night before they went into the arena. She wasn't sure if she could trust him at first. He was big and strong, with a real chance of being a victor. If he knew her defenceless thing was an act, he didn't let on. In fact, he seemed genuine in his offer and that made it a little worse - when she simpered and shook his hand gratefully, practically crying her eyes out of gratefulness - knowing that she was going to have to kill him.

 

 

She did end up killing him. There was only ten of them left, and he had been useful, she'd admit that. But now was the time to strike. They had been weak enough before, struggling without water, and now he was slightly wounded from their encounter with a boy from Eleven. He would never see it coming. She sunk the axe right into Miller’s waist and he faltered immediately, clutching his side as waves of blood spilled down his legs. She swung again and it struck his shoulder, clinking loudly when the metal hit bone, shattering it. He finally went down, twitching, shaking but not quite dead. Johanna dropped the axe into the soft soil beside her, her body aching with the exertion. She was dizzy and dehydrated and she half-collapsed onto Miller’s bloody chest, sighing.

Staring down at him, she realised he was sort of pretty. Probably too pretty. Her hands, stained red, slid up until they were cupping his jaw. She brought her face closer to his, almost contemplating kissing him, just to see what he tasted like. She'd kissed a few boys in her time, none too memorable and she thought maybe it might be nice to give him one last joy but quickly decided against it. Miller’s eyes widened at her, bewildered by her actions but limbs too useless to try and kill her.

He was dying too slowly, she decided, and she couldn’t reach her axe. It was just out of mercy then her bloodied fingers wrapped around his throat and squeezed until his wide eyes fluttered shut.

Everything was relatively easy after that, easier than it should have been. She just imagined the tributes as trees. Just kept chopping at them until they fell down.

It probably wasn’t funny but she couldn’t help her laughter when she saw their faces as she descended on them. The look of surprise was comical. Guess she wasn’t such a weakling anymore was she. Guess they shouldn't have ignored her.

When there was just three of them left, her and two careers, Johanna was rather tired. She didn't know how long she had been in the arena, how many days had passed. All she knew was she couldn't get Miller's blood off of her hands.

When there were two, she smirked at the sight of the picture in the sky of the boy from One, because it meant his fellow career had finally turned on him, eliminated him from the arena. She smirked but she didn't really feel any joy. She didn't really feel anything to be honest.

When the last cannon sounded, she rose to her feet, bloody, hands too steady as she stared at the body of the girl from Two. Slowly she raised her axe into the air. She wasn't laughing anymore.

 

 

“Well I think I can say that no one was expecting that,” said Caesar, and he was smiling at her but it was in an unsure sort of way, like he was half-expecting her to pull out an axe right there and then and hack him to pieces.

Johanna just smirked, playing her part, staring down at her fingernails like she could still see Miller’s blood underneath them, when they had scrubbed her clean ten times over.

 

 

So yeah, people are stupid, and they forgot how dangerous she could be when all of the signs were right there before them. When she comes home, and stands on the train platform, she isn’t expecting everyone to cheer her, isn’t expecting her parents to rush towards her. And they don’t. Her brother and his wife gaze at her, relief and caution mixed on their faces but they don’t move either. The small toddler in her brother's arms looks at her curiously, almost like he remembers her. Everyone musters a half-clap and she finds Miller’s parents in the crowd and wonders if they will ever forget that she held their son's life in her hands, stole it in the blink of an eye.

Eventually, she just climbs down from the train and she heads to the victor’s village and no one follows her there.

 

 

She wakes in the early morning after her first night back, bleeding into her sheets. Panic shoots through her, irrational thoughts filling her brain – like she hasn’t really survived the games or one of the other tributes has come back to finish her - until she realises she’s been scratching herself in her sleep, her arms and legs and stomach bearing the marks of her nightmares. Under her fingernails is the bright red stain of blood. She knows it’s hers.

But for a second she pretends it’s Miller’s.

She thinks the nightmares are a sign of weakness. It’s not like she feels guilty after all, does she? She just wanted to survive. She did what she had to. It’s not her fault that wanting to survive meant others had to die. That’s The Capitol’s fault, Snow’s fault. She doesn’t feel guilty. No, not at all.

Except she does.

 

 

Seven weeks after her return to Seven, she is summoned back to The Capitol. She doesn't know why. After all, the victory tour isn't for months. Aren't they supposed to leave her alone until then? Hasn't she earned some peace?

Apparently not.

“I’ll give you a few days to think about it," says Snow when she's in his office, sitting across him, feeling like blood is dripping out of her ears. "You can go now."

Johanna doesn't move yet though. Her hands are clenched around the arms of her seat. She's sure if she gets up now, she's going to climb right over Snow's desk and squeeze every breath she can out of his lungs, just like she did with Miller.

 

 

The first time she meets Finnick Odair, she's in a Capitol bar, trying to forget Snow's words. He appears beside her, dressed in some ridiculous pants that look like they were made out of fish scales and a shirt with a neckline all the way to his bellybutton. She has to stifle a laugh.

"You look spectacular," she says sarcastically. "Like a pirate." She notes the sheen on his tanned skin, the slightly glittering body lotion he must be wearing catching under the spinning lights. "A gay pirate."

Finnick chuckles, gesturing to the bartender without a word. He must be a regular here, or at least come here often enough for them to know exactly what he drinks. An electric blue tumbler is placed right in front of him and he downs it with one long swig. He leans in close to her, so close she can feel his breath hot against her face. “I heard you met with Snow the other day.”

Johanna stills, gripping her glass so hard she almost thinks it might break. “Do you want something in particular Odair?”

“I just want to warn you," he says, and he doesn't sound like the Finnick she sees on television. He seems much more normal. “You should listen to me Johanna.”

She stubbornly shakes her head. She doesn't want a lecture from him of all people, and he grips her shoulders. She loses it then, Snow's words still richocheting in her brain, setting her off. “Get your damn hands off of me,” she says venomously. “Whore.”

She says it, wanting to deliberately hurt him and it does. His hands slide off of her, his smiling face suddenly stony. She feels a little bad about it but she quickly pushes it away because she doesn't want to feel bad for pretty boy Finnick Odair when he's seen on the arm of a different Capitol socialite every week. _He_ gave in to Snow's demands. _He_ let himself be bought, be sold. She can't do that, won't do that.

“Don’t be stupid Johanna," he says, his tone low.

He's still too close so she gives him a shove for good measure, spitting out, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

 

 

She says no. He's just bluffing. There's nothing he can do to hurt her. There's nothing worse than the arena.

She’s wrong.

 

 

They say it’s an accident. The explosion that kills her parents and her brother and his wife. A freak accident; the gas line broke. They say it’s lucky her three year old nephew wasn’t in the house at the time, that he was in the arms of his great - grandparents just across the road, that instead of being blown to bits, they just watched the whole place go up in flames.

Such luck.

She stands there next to her grandparents at the funeral, her nephew dozing in her grandmother’s arms and her aunt, who’s shaking as they lower the empty coffins into the ground. She’s sobbing loudly, uncontrollably and Johanna almost wants to hit her, yell at her to shut up.

 _It's not your fault they're dead,_ she thinks. _Just mine._

The gasps alert her to his presence. She doesn’t even have to turn around, simply see the wide eyes of the mourners in front of her as he moves swiftly to her side. He doesn’t belong here in Seven, amongst the forest, the earth. He’s all tanned skin, glossy bronze hair, carefully mussed. For once he’s not dressed like a bloody peacock, instead wearing demure black slacks and a navy shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Johanna just closes her eyes.

Funny how Finnick’s apologies don’t mean a thing.

 

 

After she finishes her victory tour and moves to The Capitol, Finnick offers to take her to Haymitch. She's heard about him of course, never met the old drunk but she's not sure how on earth he can help her. He's never really seemed all that useful on television.

When they enter his filthy apartment, Haymitch laughs at the sight of them together. Johanna isn't sure what's so funny. “Oh look," he says, "another lost puppy.”

She explodes, launching at him with as much ferocity as she can, hoping she can somehow claw his eyes out of his head. She gets a couple of scratches onto his face before Finnick stops her, wrapping an arm around her waist and hoisting her easily into the air.

Haymitch barely reacts, simply sitting further back in his seat. “You’re going to have to be a lot nicer if you want my help sweetheart.”

“I don’t want your help," she snaps, still hovering on Finnick's shoulder, his hands clasped firmly around her.

“Jo,” says Finnick, lightly setting her down onto her feet. “Look, you’re not going to make it on your own. We’ll help you. We’ll coach you.”

"Coach me?" she says with a stuttering laugh.

Haymitch snorts, vaguely touching the faint red marks Johanna has left on his cheeks. "Believe me. You're going to need it."

 

 

Finnick’s first lesson is to create a persona. He calls it ‘Capitol Johanna’.

“You just have to work out who Capitol Johanna is,” he explains.

“She’s a bitch,” says Johanna cuttingly, “Just like regular Johanna is.”

Amusement fills Finnick’s eyes. “I think Enobaria already has that covered.”

 

 

The first little red envelope arrives on her doorstep a couple of weeks later. She reads it before throwing it into her fireplace and burning it. It's the middle of the night when she heads to Finnick's apartment because she's been pacing for hours unable to sleep. He's half-asleep himself, hair mussed but he lets her in anyway and they sit in the darkness. For a while they do not speak because Finnick's not sure what more he can tell her, what he can possibly say to her.

"Who was your first time with?" she asks eventually, her voice quiet, peering at him from under her lashes.

"Some woman," is all he says, and he doesn't say her name like he's forgotten it but Johanna's sure he hasn't. She's not sure it's possible to forget.

 

 

In the early morning, when light is creeping into the room, she requests something of him, something she has no right to ask of him when Annie is back in Four, waiting on the pier every day even though she knows he's not coming back, at least not any time soon. But Johanna asks him anyway because she's actually scared of what's coming and she can't admit that.

And because he's scared too, all the time, he agrees.

 

 

“So are we gonna do this or what?” she asks him the next night.

Finnick gives a short, humourless laugh. “If this is how you proposition people, we’re in serious trouble.”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on Odair, you know I could walk out on the street right now and pick up anyone I want. Instead I’m choosing you and your…..legendary skills,” she says with a smirk, lifting one of her legs and resting it on one of his thighs.

Finnick’s fingers twist around her ankle, as if unsure whether to push her off and pull her in closer. “I don’t know if I can –“

“You promised,” she says sharply. “You said yourself that if your first time could have been with someone who cared about you, you would have done it in a second. If you could have had Annie –“

“Don’t,” he says, his voice strained. “Don’t talk about her.”

“Fine,” she says, swinging her leg off of him and rising abruptly to her feet. “I’m not going to talk about her. You’re gonna take off my clothes and I’m going to be Capitol Johanna like you told me to and you’re going to be Capitol Finnick and we’re going to pretend that no else exists.”

He stands up, determination on his face and she knows she’s won.

As he slides her shirt up over her head, she instructs him, “Don’t be gentle.”

 

 

“I miss her,” he says later, his voice soft and faint, like he barely admit it to her, let alone himself.

Johanna doesn’t look at him, her throat tight. She reaches over to the bedside table and grabs the packet of cigarettes she bought earlier that afternoon.

She heads out onto the balcony and doesn't go back inside until she's smoked the entire pack.

 

 

“Johanna Mason," he says, looking her up and down. "In the flesh. So glad we could do this.”

“Me too,” she lies, twisting her mouth into a playful smirk.

Laying a hand over the small of her back, he says, “Well I thought we could play a game, since you're so good at them.”

She just grins, not showing how much the idea of _playing games_ makes her skin crawl. Johanna thought the games were over. But now she knows that they will never end. That the arena was only the beginning. She just wishes she hadn't been so stubborn, that she had realised it before she lost so much.

But she didn't, and now she has to live with it, with herself and what she's done.

"Damn right I am," she says. "I think we already know who's going to win."

 

 

After that, she starts to frequent the Capitol bar in which she first met Finnick. It's packed every night and she likes it because the noise, the pressure of all of these bodies is so overwhelming that it takes her mind off of everything else. It's easy to lose herself on the dancefloor or drowning shots at the bar with random strangers. But people rarely approach her, start real conversations with her probably because they're so scared of her. She kind of likes it - the fear they show - but one night someone does fill the stool next to her. She barely acknowledges him but can make out enough of him from the corner of her eye. He's handsome, not in the way Finnick is but kind of rugged, almost in a District Seven sort of way. He has wavy black hair that slinks down his neck and stubble along his chin. Under the flashing lights, she can see a large dragon tattoo on his arm.

“Hey,” he says, shooting her a smile. “Do I know you?”

A scoff escapes her throat. “I’m insulted."

“I’m just kidding. Of course I know who you are. You’re Johanna Mason.”

She nods. "I am. And you're going to buy Johanna Mason a drink, right?"

"What's in it for me?" he says, his smile widening.

Johanna just smirks to herself, gesturing to the bartender for another drink. "He's paying," she says to him.

 

 

Twenty minutes later they're in her apartment, half-naked on her bed. She's straddling him, and he's grinning up at her, like he can hardly believe his luck. She flicks her tongue along the panels of his stomach, nipping at his skin, ignoring the little sighs he makes. Then she moves back up his body.

“God, you’re so hot,” he gasps in awe, “you’re so –“

“Shut up,” she commands, pressing the palms of her hands harder into his chest, and for a second, the sight of him trapped underneath her transports her back to the games, back to Miller, and she wonders how easy it would be to slink her fingers around his throat. She thinks about how she could squeeze and feel his pulse fluttering and force every last breath out of his lungs…..

She starts laughing then, high and vicious and somewhat hysterical and she’s not sure what’s so funny about the fact that she’s a killer, that she still thinks about killing but she can’t seem to stop.

“Johanna?” he says, and his voice contains more fear for his own wellbeing than concern for her mental state right now.

She blinks, cutting off suddenly, remembering the warmth of a body under hers. “Just shut up.”

He does.

 

 

Maybe it’s in bad taste that during her first games as mentor, she picks a tribute to hit on. What’s the harm after all giving some poor kid a thrill before his most likely probable death? She doesn’t really plan on bringing anyone back to her private apartment up on level seven though but she gets a red envelope the night of the parade and she’s so damn angry all of a sudden that she grabs the boy from Two by the shirt and practically drags him upstairs.

He’s a typical Career, fairly tall and muscular and fair haired and he’s a bit of an idiot but it doesn’t really matter. He tries at first to be in control, fasten her hands at her sides but she’s not having any of that. He might be a Career and he might consider himself superior to everyone else but she’s running the show here.

“Come on darling,” she hisses, digging her nails into his collarbone. “Be a good boy.”

 

 

A tremor runs through her, rolling down her spine, dragging her back into a memory. _“Be a good girl. Just let me win this game. Let me win this one."_

Johanna gasps against the Career’s skin, wrenching herself back into the present.

_Don’t think about it._

 

 

She pretends it all means something.

The drinking and smoking and sex, like it’s her own personal fuck-you to the Capitol that they can’t control her entirely because she’s Johanna Mason and they can kill her parents and her brother and his wife but they can’t kill her, no matter what they do.

So she pretends it all means _something._

It doesn’t.

 

 

“I hope you know what you’re doing Mason,” says Haymitch the night of the interviews. “Those kids.... you should be careful."

"Nothing to be careful about Haymitch," she says sharply. "Nothing to lose."

But inside she's thinking about her grandparents and her nephew and Finnick, and Annie waiting back home for him and even Haymitch, and she realises that she has more to lose than ever.

"I will be careful," she adds, feeling rather chastened, swallowing heavily.

Haymitch just nods, patting the top of her head awkwardly before walking off.

 

 

The second time it happens with Finnick, they’ve both come back from a bad night with bad people and she’s half-drunk and he’s still floating from the pills in his system, eyes glazed and mouth hanging open.

It’s out of desperation more than anything that he grabs for her, hands fumbling at her dress, lips sloppily kissing down her neck. And it’s out of hatred for the Capitol more than desire that she unbuckles his pants and leaves lipstick smudges all over his chest because screw them, screw Snow. They don’t get to break them, they don’t get to take the last bit of free will they have.

But when it’s over, he cries, sobbing so loudly that he sounds like a child, and it takes her a moment to realise he’s choking on the name ‘Annie’.  And she can’t stand the sound so she tells him point blank that it’s never going to happen again and she yells at him to stop but he doesn’t until she punches him hard in the side to knock the wind out of him.

He looks at her in surprise, gasping for air, a wounded expression on his face before asking in a quiet, almost amused voice, “Did you just punch me?”

“Yes. You’re not fourteen anymore Finnick. You’re twenty two and this is your life for another eight years whether you like it or not so you have to hold yourself together and be a man.”

“I don’t think it’ll be over in eight years Jo. At least not for me.” A dark smile forms on his lips. “I don’t think I’m going to suddenly become undesirable on my thirtieth birthday.”

“One can only hope,” she says, climbing out of bed, and swaggering to the bathroom, in all her naked glory.

“I’m sure you’ll have no problem becoming undesirable,” he calls out to her. “After all, you’re only nineteen and you’re already pretty close –“

“Shut up Finnick!”

 

 

She heads back to Seven for the first time in two years. At first, she didn't want to go back, didn't want to stare at the rubble and ruin of the house where her parents once lived. Walk through what used to be her bedroom, stand on the dust of what used to be their front lawn, where she chased her older brother around with their father's axe. But Finnick convinced her to and he was going back to Four for two weeks anyway; he didn't get many chances to go home now. He was lucky if he got two whole months out of the entire year to spend in Four.

Haymitch had disappeared back to Twelve, to live in the filth he called a home. He wouldn't be back for at least a month. Now that they were getting older, that they had each other and could handle themselves without self-destructing, he was spending more and more time in Twelve. Johanna didn't know why he liked it so much. As far as she knew, there weren't exactly pleasant memories there for him nor was it the greatest place on earth anyway.

Which meant her options were being along in the Capitol or back in Seven with what was left of her family.

So she heads back to Seven and her grandparents seem pleased to see her. They don't treat her like a stranger, like her parents did before they died. She almost fits in there and it's nice, being back. Her nephew Woodrow is four and looking more like her brother every day with his curly dark hair and dark eyes. When she runs into him in the hall, her heart hammers into her chest because it's like looking at her brother.

“Who are you?” he asks, looking up at her curiously.

She's not surprised he doesn't remember her. He was only two the last time she saw him and even then, she hardly spent any time around him. They were all too wary of her after the games to ever really leave her alone with him. “I’m Johanna.”

She doesn’t explain to him that she’s his aunt or that she’s the reason his parents are both dead and she probably won’t tell him either of those things for as long as they both live. It’s just easier this way. After all, she’s almost never allowed to come back to Seven, so what’s the point of making them family, forming attachments when she’s just going to leave and disappoint him.

“I’m a friend,” she adds. “I want you to know that I’m always looking out for you, protecting you even if you can’t see me. I’m always around.”

“Like you’re hiding in the trees?” She nods and he pauses, considering. “Are my parents hiding in the trees too?”

Johanna’s throat locks. “Yeah. They’re always looking over you Woody.”

Woody smiles and goes back to playing with his toys.

After that, Johanna heads into the forest and she just screams because goddamn none of this is fair. It's not fair her nephew has to grow up without his parents or that she won't ever see hers again and she's bought and sold like Finnick and the others and she can't do anything about it.

She hacks at the trees with her father's old axe until it feels like she’s ripped both of her shoulders out of their sockets but even then, the pain isn't enough. She wants to feel _more._

Johanna hears a rustling in the trees sometime later and tenses, the axe tight in her hands. She feels like a tribute again for a few terrifying seconds, and she is both afraid and thrilled and plain disgusted at the idea of killing again.

A boy emerges, no a man, of at least twenty, with dark hair and eyes and broad shoulders. And he looks like Miller, might even be one of his relatives, a distant cousin or something.

“Hey,” he says, sweat glistening on his brow.  “You okay?”

The axe slips from her hands. “No,” she says. And then she shoves him up against the tree she had been trying to cut down and smashes her lips against his.

Because she’s Johanna Mason, he doesn’t dare argue.

 

 

Her grandfather passes away days after his ninetieth birthday, not long after she heads back to the Capitol. She knew he was unwell, had seen it in his face during her visit, even if they didn't tell her point blank. His hands had been near useless for years, muscles worn away by his work in the lumberyards. His eyesight had gotten so bad to the point where people were just blurry shapes. It was just a matter of time.

Just weeks before, she hadn't been able to contemplate spending time in Seven. But now she wanted to go back, support her already frail grandmother. But she knew she'd need special permission.

“I’m sorry Johanna, I just don’t see a free spot in your schedule.”

Johanna bites down into her gums so hard blood floods her mouth. It’s the only way she can keep the vitriol in, the yells and screams that burn her throat. She’s learned her lesson by now, learned that all her words do is get people she cares about killed.

Snow looks at her, smiling like he’s just waiting for her to snap, like he’s looking for any excuse he can just to punish her further.

It’s all she can do not to give him the satisfaction of it.

 

 

She takes her anger out in the safety of her own high rise apartment. By the time Finnick arrives, she's destroyed every glass in her kitchen cabinet, broken a lamp and put her foot through this abstract painting she's always hated but Finnick insisted she hang up.

He's there within minutes of her getting home. He's always there and it's irrational to hate it, his presence in her life when he's one of the best things she has but she does anyway. "Jo," he starts.

“I hate this," she yells at him, "I hate this, I hate Snow, I - I hate myself, I hate -“

And then she stops, because she's sure there's nothing more she hates than herself. And that’s the worse part of it all, that she’s become someone she can’t even stand.

She collapses into the corner, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Finnick approaches her warily.

“I’m a fuckin’ mess Finn,” she mumbles.

“We’re all messes,” he murmurs, reaching an arm down.

“Don’t,” she says, pushing his hand away. “Don’t touch me or I’ll probably start crying or something.”

“Cry then. You’ve done everything else to cope –“ _DrinkingSexSmokingBreakDestroyAnythingAndEverything -_ “- why not cry?”

She doesn’t want to. She really doesn’t want to. But as soon as Finnick slides down beside her, gripping her shoulder firmly and pulling her against him, she does.

 

 

Her grandmother follows her husband into death not long after. Johanna doesn't even bother asking if she can go back. 

 

 

When she turns twenty, she wants to celebrate by drinking herself into unconsciousness and picking up some naïve idiot who’ll listen to every word she says and do whatever she tells him to. Instead, Snow sends her off to Amon Wylander, a forty year old banker with a plastic face.

Finnick promises her that they’ll meet up afterwards and Haymitch even offers to share his good Capitol booze with her, not the shitty District Twelve stuff he usually drinks. The thought of getting to spend her birthday with them is the only thing that forces her out of the door.

She arrives at Amon's place a couple of minutes late, knowing he won't really care; it's a part of her image after all. That slight, rebellious streak.

"Johanna," he says warmly when he opens the door. "Almost thought you wouldn't show. Come in."

She does, blinking, stopping dead in her tracks when she sees someone else in the room with them.

Cashmere Pettyfer is standing there, long blonde hair styled into perfect curls that fall below her shoulders. She’s wearing a long, baby pink dress that makes her look a lot younger than her twenty five years and Johanna doesn’t know why they haven’t stopped playing up her angelic looks when she’s not a teenager anymore. For god sakes, she’s killed people, just like they all have. She’s not a fucking saint.

Johanna tries to hide her confusion at Cashmere's presence, smoothing out her voice when she speaks. “Cashmere, what are you doing here?”

“Well I thought that since it was your birthday, we shouldn’t celebrate alone,” says Amon, smiling genially at her, clinking the glass of wine he picks up against Cashmere's. “I ran into Cashmere and I thought it would just be wonderful if we could all celebrate together.”

The way he says 'together' makes her feel weird. That should be her first clue. That right there should make her run out the door.

But she doesn't, just stands there, feeling very young all of a sudden, in a way she hasn't felt in a long time.

“Happy birthday,” says Cashmere in her smooth, lilting voice, holding up her glass as if toasting her. Johanna tries to hide the bitterness in her smile.

She’s never been overly fond of Cashmere or her brother Gloss. She, like most Careers, like to think they’re above everyone else but she has to admit she does feel a bit of pity for Cashmere when she remembers Finnick telling her how he and the beauty from Two are the most popular victors. Johanna can see why. Tall and blonde and pretty – there isn’t a man alive who would turn her down when others like herself and Enobaria are acquired tastes.

Cashmere sets her glass down, strides over to Johanna, her eyes suddenly blue slits, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. She’s turned on the act, transitioned in a second and it might be impressive if Johanna wasn’t entirely bewildered by the situation.

When Cashmere’s hands fit over Johanna’s shoulders and pull her close, Johanna has half a mind to snap those wrists of hers in half but she’s completely blindsided when Cashmere’s mouth smothers her own.

It’s the first time she’s kissed a woman and it’s not that much different from a man, she realises, although Cashmere’s lips are much softer and taste like strawberry lip gloss. The sensation is strange though and she wants to push Cashmere away and ask her what is going on but she knows that might cause problems so she just waits until it’s over.

Cashmere leans back just enough to whisper, “Play along.” Her pink fingernails scale Johanna’s cheek. “Be over soon.”

Johanna closes her eyes when she feels another pair of hands on her. It’s not soon enough.

 

 

When she gets home, she's surprised to see Finnick and Haymitch already half-drunk on her couch before she remembers that they promised to celebrate her birthday with her. They shout her name happily when she enters but she's not in the mood anymore. She just wants to crawl into bed.

Finnick notices her unethusiatic response, lowering his glass. “Johanna?”

“I'm tired," she says shortly. "Go home guys."

But they don't. Haymitch follows her into her room, taking a seat on her bed. There's a snappy retort on her tongue, ready for him, but she can't be bothered. "Tell me what happened," he says, and she does, hugging her legs, her forehead pressed into her knees.

“Did you know?” she spits later. “About Cashmere?”

He shakes his head, his eyes bloodshot. “No. Are you okay?”

She shrugs, and she's suddenly too tired to be angry. “I don’t know. I’m just…over it I guess. Tonight I switched off. And I got through it. I’ll keep getting through it. Have to, right?”

“Right,” says Haymitch. "But it's okay if you're not okay."

"I'm fine," she says and the scariest part is that she cannot tell if she's lying or not.

 

 

A few weeks later, the reaping is held for the 74th Annual Hunger Games . She stands on the stage next to Blight as the names are called out. In the crowd, she sees her aunt, and a five year old boy with curly hair that falls into his eyes and she’s reminded of the boy she used to chase around her front yard, the older brother she teased and taunted but loved all the same. But it hurts to look at him too long so she just stares ahead at nothing instead.

The District Seven tributes this year are a pair of thirteen year olds, skinny little things who are yet to really work in their life. Johanna knows they'll be dead within hours of the games starting.

When they get onto the train, the two tributes immediately seek refuge in their rooms, probably to cry, leaving only Johanna and Blight in the carriage.

"More bodybags," he says tiredly, pouring himself a drink from the carriage. "Another year." He looks up at her. "We should get some rest, want to be ready tomorrow, do we?" Johanna is silent, ignoring him like she usually does. But for once Blight pushes her more. "Come on, seriously, it's late, I'm sure you're exhausted -"

“Shut up Blight,” she says automatically, narrowing her eyes at him, immediately suspicious of his motives. He's never been a good mentor, near useless. He's thirty now, scruffy and not unattractive but hardly desirable. She knows he used to get an envelope on occasion, when Capitol citizens felt like slumming it. But that was maybe four times a year. You'd think he would have felt a little sympathy for her when Snow came for her but he was alarmingly detached from the whole situation. She's never really forgiven him for that and he knows it too. They might be forced together once a year to mentor but that doesn't mean they have to talk and they rarely do.

"I know you don't like me," he says, sitting opposite her. "I know that but we could try and be civil."

Her gaze grows icy. "Civility will never exist between us. You were my mentor. I stepped out of that arena into more petty games and you abandoned me."

Blight sighs. "One day you'll understand Johanna. You've been doing this what, three years now? Try doing it for ten, watching kids die year after year, not being able to do a thing about it. It's hard enough and then for you....I didn't want to watch you become _this_. I didn't care enough, I couldn't. I could never help you and I suppose I didn't want to try. I'm a coward, I know that, I can admit it. And I'm sorry I guess, for being so lousy. But just...you'll understand one day when another victor comes along and you're in my shoes, and you can turn them into this Capitol fraud or you can walk away."

He abruptly rises from his seat, exiting the carriage. Johanna watches his retreating back, thinking that maybe she already does understand but thinking she really doesn't want to.

 

 

The night of the parade, Johanna is restless, on the prowl for someone to help her forget. She's spent days and days thinking about Blight's words and maybe it's his fault that she's even more distant with her tributes than usual, because the idea of making these thirteen year olds kids into.....well, _her,_ makes her feel like throwing up. _  
_

She eyes off her newest victim. A tall, broad shouldered, olive skinned guy who looks more man that boy. He’s in leather pants and a vest that highlights his fairly muscular chest and arms. He’s wearing a stony expression that diminishes his attractiveness a little. He seems far too broody for Johanna’s liking but she’s willing to overlook it because he’s pretty smoking hot.

“Hey gorgeous,” she says as she sidles up next to him, batting her eyelids. Her innocent act doesn’t work very often, especially when practically everyone has seen you kill people but she still tries it anyway, mostly because people get a kick out of her pretending. “You were looking mighty fine out there.”

“Thanks,” he says stiffly, shuffling uncomfortably in his clothes.

She tilts her head at him, licking her lips in the way she knows brings men to their knees. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“Terrified,” he answers somewhat sarcastically, not meeting her eyes. He’s staring at something over her head and she’s rather offended because she’s never had any problems seducing poor souls and the fact that she can’t even hold the attention of some eighteen year old kid stings. “Excuse me.”

He sidesteps her small frame and leaves her standing there, thoroughly annoyed. She’s wondering if he’s gay when Haymitch wanders over, drunker than he should be, clutching his favourite silver flask in his hand.

“Why were you scaring Gale Hawthorne?” he asks.

“Is that who that was?” she says. “Your boy? He’s good looking, probably get lots of sponsors. You might have a shot this year.”

Haymitch shrugs. “Well the crowd didn’t pay a lot of attention to him. Didn’t you hear?” he says, and he sounds rather weary. “Katniss Everdeen is the talk of the parade. They’re calling her the ‘girl on fire’.”

Johanna snorts, catching sight of Katniss herself, standing by the elevator, staring at her feet. Next to her is Gale and the way he stares at Katniss makes Johanna realise he’s not gay, just another lovesick fool, and it’s a damn shame that they’ll probably both end up dead or killing one another. Just another great tragedy courtesy of The Capitol.

“Girl on fire?” she says, stealing Haymitch’s flask from him and taking a long swig. “That’ll never catch on.”

 


	3. HAYMITCH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last part of this story, focusing on everyone's favourite drunk. I really enjoyed these little backstories and I hope you enjoyed reading this and A thousand silhouettes. I have another unrelated everlark story in progress if you'd like to check it out. Also, just realised that silhouettes has over 5000 hits and over 130 kudos so thank you! I hope you guys can show this story some love too. :)

**PART THREE - HAYMITCH**

 

Haymitch never wanted children. When he met Jayna, he told her that. In fact, it was one of the first things he told her, on their very first date. He couldn't afford to really take her anywhere, - where would they go anyway? - being from the Seam but he walked her from school to her house and they called it a date and he bluntly told her that he never wanted to have kids when he grew up and he really didn't want anything serious; he had watched his mother cry for days when his father had run off with another woman. She was okay now, a wonderful mother, the best woman he knew, who worked so damn hard to make sure they didn't starve. But he didn't want to experience that kind of heartbreak, or be responsible for hurting someone that way.

He was only fourteen but he knew what he wanted and he wasn't going to waste time on a girl who didn't understand that.

Jayna just smiled, and said, "We'll see about that."

Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, he can still hear her saying these words.

 

 

They dated for twenty months, and he loved her, as much as he knew how to. But it wasn't all sunshine and roses - there was still the reaping hovering over them. It was a strange feeling for Haymitch, to be so acutely aware of someone else when he should have been worrying about himself. After all, if he did get called, he had to worry about his mother and younger brother, about getting back to them.

But still, when the first reaping since they had been together arrived, he found he couldn't control his nerves as the escort fished her hand around in the bowl of girls names. He only relaxed when both names had been called and he looked across the grounds, to find her eyes. She looked at him, and his heart swelled, and he felt like he had almost lost her somehow, like she had nearly slipped through his fingers and he realised he wouldn't be able to handle it if he did. She was the only one who understood him, the only one who didn't care that he had a habit of being moody or surly or that he had very little patience for people in general.

She was the only person he'd ever be happy with, and he knew that, at only a little over fifteen.

Jayna smiled widely at him, her eyes shining with tears, and she mouthed 'I love you.'

That night, they lost their viginities to each other.

 

 

They weren't so lucky the next time around. It was the 50th Hunger Games, the second quarter quell and there were going to be four tributes this time instead of two. And he was one of them.

He said goodbye to his mother and little brother first. His mother cried and he hugged her until she stopped, and he told his little brother not to grow too big while he was gone. Jayna was last.

"Don't cry," he said when she entered. It had been hard enough watching the woman who had done so much for him weeping into his shoulder.

"I'm not going to," she said, simply kissing him hard on the lips. She ran her hands up his neck, weaving her fingers in his dark curly locks. "I know you can win."

"I know too," he replied, attempting a grin.

"You're smarter than they are," she said. "Just because there's twice as many tributes, it doesn't mean anything. No difference. They're still going to be as stupid."

Haymitch laughed, appreciating how much she was trying to cheer him up. He wrapped his arms around her back, hands slipping under her top, feeling the skin he had touched hundreds of times now. He tried not to think this might be the last time. "Have I told you I love you?"

"Frequently. But you better tell me again anyway."

He did, and they kissed for another minute until the peacekeepers dragged her away and his brave, cocky facade started to crack a little.

 

 

There was no mentor for District Twelve, hadn't been for a while since the only victor that had ever come from there had died a couple of years ago. And as such, when the games rolled around each year, the tributes were given a choice - a victor that wasn't already assigned to another District could cross over and help them or they could decline and train on their own. Of course no ever said no, until him.

Their escort, Carlie Prescott, stared at him, as did the other three District Twelve tributes.

"No?" she repeated, appearing confused.

"No," he said again. He didn't need any of them. He was going to win all by himself, going to get back to his mother and brother. He was going to get back to Jayna, and as soon as she was eighteen and they didn't have to worry about the reaping anymore, he was going to move all of them into a fancy house in Victor's Village. They were going to get married and none of them would ever starve, because he would have more money than they'd ever need, and his mother was going to smile so big when they held the toasting and his brother was going to be excited at having a sister in the family. And no matter how many times he said he didn't want kids, they were probably going to end up with six dark haired children running around their front yard, and the thought made him giddily smile, in a very unlike Haymitch way.

He could see it all in his head so clearly. It was going to happen. Just wait.

 

 

"So what do you think of the Games having twice as many tributes?"

Haymitch just smirked in his seat beside Caesar, remembering Jayna's words.

 

 

It took just eleven days for the first part of Haymitch's dream to come true. He laid back in the grass as the last cannon sounded, clutching his stomach, wondering if he would die before the hovercraft came down to save him. And as he waited, he thought about Maysilee, about holding her hand as she slipped away. He thought about the District One girl, and the axe in her head, and thanked  he wasn't even sure existed that he had been born with a brain. That he was smart enough to figure out the way the forcefield worked.

And then he thought about Jayna and he smiled as the hovercraft finally appeared.

 

 

So Haymitch is the winner now, a Victor.  He climbs off of the train, weary, and wearing this new, polished skin. He touches the scars that should be there on his stomach where the District One girl gutted him but feels only the tiniest ridge, sees the faintest lines. He feels too clean, almost misses the coal that used to permanently stay under his fingernails. His eyes travel over the crowd and the reception he receives is not overly enthusiastic; he supposes it's worse this time, because three instead of one of District Twelve's own had to die so he could make it back.

He sees Maysilee Donner's sister in the crowd, her face sunken and withdrawn, and he wants to tell her that he's sorry for turning his back on her, sorry that he couldn't save her but that's the way Games work and he really shouldn't be sorry at all.

His little brother runs up the steps, and hugs him so hard he feels like his legs are going to cave, fly out from under him. His feet touch the floor and his mother joins the two of them. She informs him they've moved all of his stuff into their new house in the Victor's Village and they can go back there right now if he wants, and she sounds so excited that Haymitch smiles faintly. It's what he always wanted, isn't it?

So why does he feel empty?

He takes the room upstairs and his mother and brother sleep downstairs and he's rather glad to have the floor to himself. He spends most of the night, walking up and down the hallway, the repetitiveness comforting somehow, until he hears a noise coming from his room. He freezes, his hands tensing into fists, and he heads back to his room, ready for whatever's in there.

 _She's_ standing in his room, breathless and breathtaking in the moonlight. She looks the same, and that's comforting, that even if he feels different, she's still the same. Still his.

"Haymitch," she says, reaching a hand out to him.

He kisses her without a word, with enough force to make the world around them disappear before falling onto the bed with her.

 

 

When she wakes up a couple of hours later in the early morning, she finds him sitting in the corner, staring at his hands.

"Haymitch?" He looks up, appearing surprised, as if forgetting she was there. "Come back to bed."

"In a minute." Jayna stares at him for a moment before her head hits the pillow again and she falls asleep quickly, because she can, and he watches her with a little jealousy.

He doesn't tell her he couldn't sleep because he kept seeing the candy pink birds skewer Maysilee's neck, and her face as they decided to sever their alliance. He doesn't tell her he woke up because he swore he could hear the thud of the axe as it lodged in the girl from One's skull, still feel her sword as it sliced across his stomach.

 

 

Two weeks later, he finds himself being ordered on a train to the Capitol. And he's sitting in this posh, swanky office, sitting opposite a man he's only met once, when that crown was placed on his head for all to see.

"Did I do something wrong President Snow?"

Snow pauses, twirling a single white rose between his fingers. "Wrong is such a funny word. It's all about perspective. From your perspective, you did nothing wrong, because you just wanted to survive. But from mine, you made the games, the gamemakers look foolish. You made _me_ look foolish with your little trick with the forcefield. Imagine what people must think, when a sixteen year old Seam boy from Twelve outwits the Capitol, turns what's only supposed to be there as a boundary into a weapon. Imagine when he wins as a result of this disobendience."

"I'm sorry," he says, even though he isn't. It just feels like the right thing to say right now. "But I'm not quite sure what you want from me."

"I've sent a message back to your home in District Twelve," says Snow. "I trust you'll find it."

 

He does.

 

He stands in the doorway of his bedroom for seventeen minutes. Oddly specific yes, but there’s a clock on his bedside table and he has felt every second pass in his bones, seen every minute tick over.

Every second, every minute that passes is another in which his sweetheart, the girl he wanted to marry one day, lies dead on his sheets.

In the other rooms of the house lies two other bodies - his mother and younger brother, newly twelve, yet to experience a reaping. In the bloody, gaping hole in Jayna's chest - where her heart should be, the heart that belonged to him - lies a single white rose, petals specked with red.

A shaky exhale escapes his throat. Message received.

 

 

He burns the house down, lets the ashes and dust fill the air in a place already filled with enough ash and dust. Then he moves into one of the other empty houses in the Victor's Village and doesn't leave it for weeks.

 

 

The next year, he has to mentor for the first time. They're just a pair of twelve year olds, skinny Seam kids, who look like they haven't eaten for weeks. He tries to be positive at first but jeez, watching them try to train is pathetic. Can't hold a sword or an axe or any kind of weapon, hands too weak with hunger. Every night, they shovel food into their mouths, like they'll never see a meal like that again. And they probably won't, but it's kind of sad to watch them, fills Haymitch with the only kind of sickness he associates with thinking about Jayna and his family.

 

 

The girl dies within the first day. The boy hacked to pieces on the second.

Haymitch eyes off the bottle of champagne sitting on the mantlepiece. It stares back, just tempting him.

He takes one gulp, just one swig. That's all. Just enough to dim the pain.

 

 

They keep dying. Year after year, they just _die,_ and god, what is the freaking point of them even showing up? What is the point of him trying to help when they're just going to die like Jayna and his mother and brother?

That first taste becomes a full glass at the next games. Then two. Then three. And then it's the only way he get through the night without seeing all of their faces in his head, as he rocks to sleep with a knife in one hand and a nearly empty bottle in the other.

 

 

He manages seventeen years like this, drinking his life away, hiding in his hovel of a house in the Victor's Village, emerging only when he wants alcohol from The Hob. The only real time he emerges from his mess is for the Games and that's because he has to. It gets a little better though, being there. They keep dying of course - sometimes he thinks no one from Twelve is ever going to win again and he's going to be alone forever - but he makes friends with some of the other victors and the whole experience becomes remotely bearable. There's a lovely old lady called Mags from Four, who continually tells him off for his poor drinking habits but smiles at him all the same, too kind to really mean anything.  There's Woof, who's nearly as old as Mags but twice as senile. A victor from Three named Wiress who it could be argued has less sanity but is harmless enough.

There's the pair from Eleven, Chaff and Seeder, who won five years apart. He's particularly fond of Chaff, if only because it's nice to have someone who'll join him drink for drink and shares his sense of humour. Almost like having a best friend.

But it's only for a month, just one month in a whole year that they come together. Other than that, communication between all of them is sparse, and Haymitch knows it's because even if they all like each other and get along, none of them want to be reminded of what they did, what they had to do to be there, alive.

Seventeen years, and he grows comfortable enough in this solitary existence, not getting hurt, not hurting anyone.

He's sure he would have lived another seventeen years, another twenty or thirty like this until his liver gave out.

But all of that changes when the phone rings one night and suddenly Mags is asking things of him she has no right to ask. She has no right to ask him to start caring for a boy he barely knows and he tells her this, already slightly buzzed. He asks her why out of everyone on the entire planet, she seems to think he's the one who can help Finnick the most.

"Because you've dealt with Snow before. You know how he works. You know what he'll do to Finnick if he tries to change his mind, get out of it."

Haymitch closes his eyes. Yes, he does know, very well.

On the other side of the line, Mags drops the phone and all Haymitch hears is the loud thud of her body hitting the ground and her slurred, strangled words repeating on a quiet loop in the background.

 

 

The next night he’s in Four and Mags is lying unconscious in the hospital. And he’s staring at the back of Finnick’s head, just this sixteen year old kid and wondering how on earth he is going to do this.

 

 

Dealing with Finnick gets progressively harder instead of easier like Haymitch hoped. It seems with each client, Finnick falls into a deeper depression. The only time he seems truly happy is when he can go back to Four and when he comes back to the Capitol, still blissed out. But the happiness, the glow on his face quickly wears away and he looks and seems much older. Haymitch tries to turn Finnick into his new drinking partner but Finnick is too pretty to be wasted away by drink. And besides, Haymitch soon learns Finnick has other ways of coping, and he doesn't approve of the pills but who is he to judge? It's annoying and inconvenient living part time in the Capitol to make sure Finnick's okay but there are a few plus sides, if you could call them that. He has more sober days - well not completely because come on, he can't forget years and years of dead tributes and Jayna without a heart and a dead mother and little brother whose only crime was loving him. He has to, otherwise who would make sure Finnick didn't choke on his vomit when he came back from one of his all night parties. And if he's being completely honest, it is kind of nice, having Finnick around. He's not totally unbearable, though he could learn to wear a shirt more often.

 

 

Four years later, when Finnick's calmed down somewhat - at least enough so that Haymitch is not constantly looking over him twenty four seven - and gotten used to the role he must play, he thinks he might be able to head back to Twelve more permanently, back to his hovel, his mess. But then Johanna Mason comes along, acting like she's the last person on earth who wants help from either of them.

"She lost her half of her family," says Finnick. "She needs somebody. You know what she's going through, you -"

"I didn't have a choice," cuts in Haymitch, feeling rather uncharitable. God, he just wants to go home. Hasn't he paid his dues? "She had one and she made the wrong choice. A stupid, foolish choice."

If he'd had know what using the forcefield meant, he would never have done it. He would have rather died than been responsible for the bodies in his house.

"Please."

Haymitch groans, cupping his head in his hands, feeling the urge for a drink. "You owe me Odair. I mean it. You and Mason, I'm going to be calling in favours one day and neither of you will be able to say no, you hear me?"

Finnick flashes his perfect teeth at Haymitch. "You won't regret this."

Haymitch sighs. It feels like he will.

 

 

Finnick's twenty three now, Johanna twenty. He's done enough now hasn't he? After the 74th Games, he's going to go home for good and the two of them will take care of each other and he'll have paid his dues, done enough to erase most of the guilt he's been feeling since he was sixteen.

But of course, nothing ever happens like he wants it to.

He ends up with two tributes he actually recognises - sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen and eighteen year old Gale Hawthorne. He's seen them in the Hob before, when he's gone there to barter for some white liquor from that stingy old lady Ripper. He knows they hunt, sneak under the fence each day. And judging by the amount of game they bring in, they're both pretty decent shots.

He has a chance. They both have a chance. He could get one of them home, if he really focused his efforts. And when he sees Gale, watching her every move, staring at her with the saddest expression he's ever seen, he realises he should have a chat with Hawthorne.

He finds the boy on the roof, chin resting on his knees, staring blankly into the air.

“You love her, don’t you?” he says, his first words, and Gale barely startles. It occurs to Haymitch that Gale probably heard him on the stairs, sensed his presence with those finely attuned hunter senses.

“Doesn’t matter," says Gale dully. "Not anymore.”

“She’s pretty handy with her bow. She could win if I helped her. If you helped her.”

“What if I want to win?” Gale asks quietly, like it's a secret he cannot even admit to himself. “What if I want to see my brothers and sister grow up?”

"Do you?"

Gale looks out into the night, breathing hard. Then he gets up without a word, trudges downstairs and heads to bed.

Haymich watches him go. His silence is enough confirmation. Gale Hawthorne wants to live, even at the expense of the girl he loves. Somehow, Haymitch can't blame him.

 

 

She kills him. God, it could have ended any other way but it had to end with just the two of them, didn't it? It had to end with Katniss Everdeen shooting the boy who had been in love with her for who knows how long.

"She won," says Cinna, and his voice comes out strange, like he's not sure whether to be happy or angry. He's staring at the screen, watching with Haymitch, Effie and Portia as the hovercraft comes down to claim its newest victor, who sits on the ground, shaking, looking like she has no idea what's happened.

"Yeah, celebrations all around!" says Haymitch, mocking Effie's accent.

"You should be happy," she berates Haymitch, whisking past him with a glass full of champagne. "You've mentored a Victor. Finally!" She's positively brimming with excitement, fluttering around the room like a chirping bird and he just wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her; yell into her face - _don't you know what they're going to do to her? Do you have any damn clue at all?_

"Let's have a drink then," says Haymitch flatly. He collapses back into his chair and opens a new bottle of white liquor. He doesn't stop until he's emptied the whole bottle.

Congratulations Katniss Everdeen, he thinks. _I wonder how long it'll take until you wish you'd never won._

 

 

Damn Finnick Odair. Damn him and his mouth and his inability to just shut the hell up. Haymitch just wants to beat him senseless until he remembers that he promised Mags he'd take care of him.

It's Finnick's careless comments to Johanna that set it all off. They're at the Victor's banquet being held in Katniss's honour and he's taken some of his pills - _stupidgoddamnidiotFinnick with his damn pills and I fuckin' told him not to take them but does he listen? -_ so he's quickly losing control of his words and common sense. It's not like him to take them at such a public, classy event but Haymitch figures he had one hell of a night last night.

Katniss is standing across the room, clutching the drink someone forced her into hands hard. She's wound tightly, every muscle in her body tensed and people keep coming up to her, hugging and congratulating her. He agrees with Johanna and Finnick that her face is comical as they touch her and all they share a tiny little laugh about it though Haymitch is dreading the moment when he has to tell her what's really going on, bring her world crashing down again.

But Finnick has to take it too far because he's so freaking high.

"She can't even stand being hugged," he says, leaning into Johanna who pushes him away with a scowl. "Can you imagine how bad it's going to be? How is she going to take it when they're touching her down there?" he says in a loud stage whisper, giggling like a little girl.

"What are you talking about?"

All three of them turn around. She's snuck up on them, with that silent hunter tread of hers, and her hand's shaking ever so slightly that the liquid in her glass is spilling over her fingers but she doesn't seem to notice.

It's at this point that he wants to hit Finnick. Even Johanna glares at him; _Johanna,_ who has the subtlety of a chainsaw.

"Haymitch," says Katniss, and now she's looking only at him, because she doesn't know these people, not like she knows him.  "What is he talking about?"

"Nothing, nothing," says Haymitch quickly. "Get him out of here," he mutters out of the corner of his mouth to Johanna, who hooks an arm through a suddenly very guilty looking Finnick and marches him away, muttering something foul.

"Haymitch," she says again, and he can see it on her face as she connects all of the dots - all of the stories she's heard and the way most of the people in the room have been leering and touching her all night and Finnick's comments and everything else, every other little sign she failed to notice.

"Katniss," he says but she turns and stumbles away as quickly as she can on the heels they forced her into.

He finds her outside vomiting, clutching her stomach. He pats her on the back as she coughs and splutters. "Come on sweerheart, it's all right."

When she's done, she rears up, quietly regaining her breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Is that - is that going to happen to me?" she asks. "I have a meeting with Snow next week. Is he.....?  **  
**

He cannot lie to her anymore. So he takes a deep breath and says, “First he’s going to congratulate you. And then he’s going to bring up how proud your family must be of you. And he’s going to offer you a job, and it’s going to tear your stomach to pieces and while you’re thinking about it, he’ll show you vision of your sister and mother and Gale's family and he’ll say, ‘you don’t want anything to happen to them, do you?’ And then you’ll say yes, because you never really had a choice. That's how it's gonna go."

"I'll say yes," she repeats, and there's a resignation in her voice. God, she sounds so tired, so little, such a kid, just like they all were.

"You'll say yes," he echoes. He clears his throat loudly after a minute. "It happens to a lot of Victors. Finnick, Johanna Mason, Cashmere and Gloss Pettyfer, Enobaria Harte....there must be some people out there who find you desirable but it's only because they don't know how unpleasant you are." He's trying to lighten the mood but he can tell he's doing a terrible job. Katniss is huddled over now in her yellow dress, hugging her knees, staring at the concrete and she looks the same as she did right after she killed Gale, right after she was announced as the winner. He wonders if she's thinking about that moment, wishing she could take it back.

"I'm not ready for this," she whispers.

"We'll get you ready," he promises, leaning down to her level. "We'll get you through this."

 

 

He wasn't expecting her to say anything different but he's still pissed when she defiantly shakes her head at him, her lips pursed. “I’m not going to take her in Haymitch.”

“Johanna," he says sternly. Who is she kidding? He's done enough for her over the last few years, enough that she owes him and she seems to know it too with the way she tries so hard to defy him, to wriggle out of his requests.

“I’m serious," she says, and he scoffs. "If I had wanted a puppy I would have got one.”

“Yeah, well if I’d wanted children," he snaps back, "I would have got married and had them.”

Johanna laughs loudly. “No one would marry you.”

Her words strike him deeper than she knows, and he's reminded of his girl, of Jayna and how all he thought about during the games was getting back so he could marry her. It's only for a second, that he allows the memory of her and his family to sneak back in, but it's still too long.

“Shut your damn mouth Mason," he says eventually. "You’ll do as I say.”

 

 

Katniss does move in with Johanna. Haymitch can tell she's not exactly fond of the idea either, but because he promised to help her get through this, she's agreed to do what he asks with little argument. Of course though, because she's Katniss, she does grumble a little bit. He heads there a couple of days after the move to see how she's settling in, finding Katniss sitting on the back of the couch, her arms wrapped around herself. She's scowling heavily, her eyebrows knitted together, her mouth flat. She's sitting there almost like she's been waiting for him so she can yell at him.

"What's wrong?" he asks automatically.

Johanna then makes a timely appearance, strutting into the kitchen without a stitch on, looking rather smug and impressed with herself.

Haymitch immediately throws a hand over his eyes. “Can you please, just, put some clothes on!”

“Oh come on Haymitch,” he hears her say with a derisive snort, “you know you’ve thought about me naked before.”

Haymitch’s mouth twists into an unpleasant smile . Maybe once, before he got to know her. Now she’s so familiar it’s practically sickening to ever think about her like that, especially considering what Snow does to her. Not to mention she’s incredibly annoying and frustrating, and terribly mean when she wants to be.

He slowly removes his hands and finds she's still there, and you know what, to hell with not looking. He just sighs and taps his foot, and motions for her to hurry up and finish whatever it is she's doing. They are all silent as Johanna rummages through the fridge, humming lighty to herself, and Haymitch knows she's not searching for anything in particular, just taking her sweet-arse time, to piss both of them off. Katniss's face is priceless and if he wasn't so sure she'd tear his head off, he would laugh out loud.

“She’s just messing with you kid," he says, when Johanna finally leaves them, her bedroom door closing down the hall.

“Is that what she’s doing?” Katniss asks, her voice shaking with barely concealed rage. “I was under the impression she was trying to seduce me.”

“Well she might be," he says. "Johanna has some rather unorthodox techniques when it comes to seduction.”

“Do you think this is funny?” she asks. “In a couple of weeks, I’m going to be….” She can’t finish and he can see how hard she's trying to control herself and not break. It's moments like these he can see the real Katniss Everdeen, the survivor, the one who showed up on that train, ready to live, no matter what that meant she had to do. He can see in her eyes how badly she wants to be that person still, how much she wants to just detach herself from the situation, let go of her body.

“Look, I’m sorry sweetheart, I didn’t mean to -“ He stops, grimacing. Jeez, he’s no good at this. This is why he’s been celibate since he was sixteen. This is why he never got married, never had kids.

That and Snow tore out the heart of the only girl he ever loved. It was things like that that made him sceptical of the whole practice.

On a whim, he makes his over to her, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her. She doesn't move an inch under his arms, instead asking in a quiet, curious voice. “What are you doing?”

“It’s called a hug Katniss," he says sarcastically.

“I know what it is," she responds. "I guess I was just wondering why.”

Haymitch instantly lets her go, grumbling to himself, "I hate children, hate them, this is why I'll never have 'em. Never, ever."

He walks away, still complaining but he can't deny he's a little happy at the way Katniss smiles when he leaves.

 

 

He thinks she's doing okay. Until she isn't. Until Johanna calls him and tells him she found a nearly dead Katniss Everdeen in their bathtub and he drops the bottle in his hand, letting it shatter and spill against his floorboards. Then he hangs up the phone and he races out of his apartment and he's fully intending to head there but there's a stop he has to make first.

"She tried to kill herself," he says, out of breath when the door opens. "She...."

"It's not time yet," says Plutarch as Haymitch helps himself in his house, setting about pouring a drink. He scowls at his choices. Bloody Plutarch and his fancy, rich, bubbly crap.

"Not time yet? What are we waiting for? Until they're all dead?"

Plutarch eyes him off. "Look what happened last time Haymitch. The rebellion got snuffed out like that," he says, snapping his fingers, "We're only going to get one more chance, we can't waste it. We need to give them something to fight for, a symbol, someone to look up to, someone who inspires them, who has raised above the Capitol's oppression and can make them believe they can too. This person is going to come, the moment is going to come."

Haymitch stares into his glass, resisting the urge to throw it at Plutarch. _When?_

 

 

He just goes there to see how she's doing, and it quickly turns into a twisted drinking game of who can forget the past quicker. The rules are simple. Drink until they forget about Gale and Jayna and Prim and Twelve. They don't really care who wins and by the end of it, neither are of them sure. But there is one thing he becomes sure of, one thing he learns.

Drunk Katniss is not a good Katniss.  It only takes him one night, five bottles between them and forty seven words to figure this out.

"See here, Haymitch, this right here," she says, hiking up her dress slightly and pointing to the painful looking lesions on her thighs, "this was the last straw Haymitch, the reason why I did it." She looks up at him, and in such an earnest voice, says, "But it's okay now, you know, because they can't do anything worse than this can they? They can't do anything worse than what I've been through already so it's okay, right?" She smiles this vague, drunken smile at him, like she really does believe what she's saying and she just wants him to believe it too.

And then she laughs once, short and high, before passing out on the couch beside him.

 

 

Katniss's voice finds him in his sleep later that night.

_They can't do anything worse than this can they? They can't do anything worse than what I've been through already?_

The memory of Jayna responds.

_We'll see about that._

 

 

Soon after, Katniss turns seventeen. Haymitch knows that if she can't spend it with Prim she'd rather just curl up in her bed alone. Still he forces Johanna to make some sort of plans, a small dinner with just them, nothing loud or over the top, just something that'll distract her. But Snow insists on some big party, held at one of The Capitol's hotspots. Everyone has fallen in love with Katniss - H _eroicTragicKatniss, killed her best friend to make it back to the sister she loves more than anything in the world -_  and as the newest Victor, she's still very much the flavour of Panem. He wants to take advantage of her popularity while it lasts, whether she likes it or not.

Haymitch doesn't want to go. He knows no one will miss him if he's not there. After all, what is a middle aged, paunchy, bedraggled Victor worth to them?

But he does anyway. And he's glad he does, because when he gets there, Johanna is standing by the bar, talking with a tall, handsome, fair haired man. She looks half-drunk already, brazenly slipping her hands under his shirt. Finnick is in a booth in the corner, three women attempting to rip his clothes off, crawling all over him. He's smiling but Haymitch recognises it well as a fake expression. His eyes too are glazed.

He marches right up to Johanna, grabbing her forearm and wheeling her away from her companion, who doesn't look too happy at the interruption. "Katniss?" he says, all of these questions rolled into this one word.

Johanna looks wildly around, as if realising only now Katniss is nowhere near her. "I'll go get Finnick and we'll find her," she says, but Haymitch is already gone, pushing his way through the crowd. Several minutes pass and he's sure he's scanned every square inch of the place. Then he heads into the women's bathroom, ignoring the dirty looks of some of them who hang around outside it. Only one stall door is closed, and there are some interesting noises coming from it. When he peers under, there are two pairs of shoes - black loafers and high heeled boots.

He pushes hard against the door, relieved when the lock pops open - drunk idiots couldn't be bothered to lock it properly - and there are two people in there, like the shoes suggested. The man's pants are down and the girl on her knees is shirtless, and has her fingers snuck under his waistband. He recognises the dark hair right away, pulled into a series of intricate braids.

"Do you mind?" says the man.

He does mind actually. A lot. He punches the man, who’s thirty at least, right in his smug face, and yanks Katniss to her feet, grabbing her top off of the tiles as he does. He shoves it into her hands and thankfully she's still lucid enough to get it back over her head, though her hands are shaking somewhat.

Haymitch kicks the man in the stomach for good measure. "Come near her again and I'll kill you, understand?" He closes the stall door promptly on the groaning man and sets about trying to fix Katniss up. He brushes her hair down, trying to flatten it until it almost looks like it did before. He wipes away the smudges of lipstick on her face until his fingers are stained pink.

"You okay kid? Can you hear me?"

She nods hurriedly, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly but she doesn't seem to be able to speak. Her eyes are dazed and terrified and she doesn't seem to have any idea what's going on or what she was doing only moments ago and it makes Haymitch literally want to wrap his hands around that man's throat.

"I'm going to get you out of here," he says and then he leads her out. It's a good thing the lights have been dimmed so the party can't see how much of a mess she really is. Katniss clutches to him, to the point where her nails in his arm start to hurt but he doesn't dare tell her to let go.

Finnick's eyes widen at the sight of her. "Is she alright?"

Haymitch shakes her head. "I'll get her home. You stay here. Make sure no one realises she's gone until later."

He takes her to her and Johanna's apartment, figuring it's better if she's somewhere she knows. It's hard just keeping her awake on the way there but he finally gets her into the bathroom.She sits on the bathroom tiles and he holds her steady.

"Katniss? Katniss, listen to me, what did you take?"

"Dunno know," she mumbles. "I -"

She leans away from him to vomit into the shower and he tries not to retch as the smell hits him. She wriggles out of his grasp and she's on her hands and knees in the shower, rocking back and forth, shaking like a leaf as she continues to splutter and heave and choke as she tries to breathe amidst ejecting the poison in her veins.

And he realises he's never been more terrified in his entire life than right now, watching Katniss literally expel everything from her body. He almost feels fifteen again, at the first reaping he and Jayna encountered together, how for the first time he was so aware of someone else. So worried about how they were feeling, what was going to happen to them and it's a feeling he never wanted to feel again but he does now and it fills his entire body.

"I'll call a doctor Katniss, just hold on -"

"No, no," she whimpers. "Fine, I'm fine." She's stopped now, curled up in a ball on the tiles. She looks okay, her face flushed but she's breathing in a steady rthyhm, gripping one of his hands hard.  He wipes her mouth with a damp towel, forces some water into her and they wait another hour in the bathroom, her lightly dozing on the bathmat and him watching her. She keeps the water down, doesn't vomit again and when he feels confident enough she really is okay, he hoists her up and helps her to bed. Her eyes open as he pulls the covers up over her.

"Haymitch," she whispers into the darkness. "That you?"

"Yeah, it's me. How you feeling?"

"Tired." She yawns, as if on cue.

"You shouldn't have -" He stops, feeling like he has no right to criticise her when he has no idea what she's going through. He wants to, wants to yell at her and berate her, and before the games he would have. But instead, he just strokes her hair. He reaches for the garbage tin can in the corner. There are a few papers inside so he just empties it on the floor before placing it right behind her in case she has to hurl throughout the night.

"Get some sleep," he tells her, and he waits for her eyes to close before he gets up and leaves.

 

The next morning, Katniss says nothing and he hopes she’s forgotten about it, that she was so drugged out she doesn’t remember any of it.

He’s kind of glad really. It’s not a memory he wants to remember either.

 

 

"I'm collecting my favours," he says to Finnick a week later. "You and Johanna. She's yours now. I can't look out for her at these parties and clubs. I can't be with her every minute and you guys can. You have to be," he says, slinking lower in his chair. He might care about them but Katniss is different. He adopted Finnick and Johanna but he _made_ Katniss, made her a Victor. She's like his kid, she's _his -_ because she's Twelve and Seam and they're the same and she almost feels like his family because of these things - and he's trying to relinquish as much responsibility as he can for her right now, being a damn coward, but even as he's saying it, telling Finnick that he and Johanna have to take over, he knows he will not be able to keep too much of a distance.

Finnick just nods, understanding. "Thank you."

"For handing you the responsibility of Katniss Everdeen?"

"For being everything we needed," Finnick says, clapping a hand on Haymitch's shoulder and he looks at Haymitch with such fatherly affection that Haymitch looks away, airily waving a hand at him. "Enough sentilmentality Odair, go put a fuckin' shirt on."

 

 

The time soon comes when she has to mentor and he's been dreading this for what seems like forever. He hasn't seen her in a while, trusting the other two idiots to take care of her while he's back in Twelve. And even if her face is drained of colour when he steps off the train a few days before the reaping, and she's so thin he can wrap an arm right around her waist when she leans forward to hug him, she seems okay. It's all he can ask for, he realises. He cannot demand she be happy considering the state of her life.

(She does ask him though in a sarcastic voice if he's happy to see her and he replies he'd be a lot happier if she bought him some Capitol booze at which point she tips one of her bags towards him and he sees at least three bottles in there. He then proceeds to clap loudly, shouting her praises, right there on the platform where people start to stare at them. She tells him to shut up or he'll get nothing and the whole exchange fills him with the sort of hope he hasn't felt in a long time.)

 

It doesn't last though.

 

He finds a knife on the top of the dresser as they make their way to the Capitol with two new tributes - both too young - the edge tainted by the tiniest amount of blood. It's just sitting there, like she wanted him to find it. Feeling sick, he promptly opens a window and throws it out. He's rather satisfied when it clunks loudly on the ground and vanishes.

Katniss doesn't say anything about the missing weapon and neither does he. They've gotten pretty good at it now, not talking about their problems.

 

When their first tribute dies in the bloodbath, Katniss goes to her room and he doesn't see her for a long time. By the time she comes out the next night, the other one is gone too.

 

 

Haymitch goes back to Twelve after, and falls back into old patterns. It was easy to stay relatively lucid with them around but here it's just him with no one to take care of and it's better that way, it really is, but god knows he needs a break from them and they need a break from him. But there's an old ache in his heart, the one that comes with thinking about his family and he does anything to rid himself of it.

Apparently this includes waking up in a filthy pig pen in the early hours of the morning, a light rain drizzling over him, a teenaged boy watching him.

“Who are you?” he slurs, staring upward.

“Not important,” says the boy briskly, climbing into the pen. He has a series of blond waves that stick to his forehead and broad shoulders. Haymitch manages to register the dirty apron tied around the boy's waist and figures he must be somewhere like the butcher's or the bakery.

The blonde boy fits his arms around Haymitch's shoulders and helps him to his feet. “I just need to get you out of here before my mother kills us both.”

“Something’s eating me,” says Haymitch vaguely.

A short laugh escapes the blonde boy. “Our piglets are nibbling on your toes. They think you’re food.”

“ _They’re_ food,” corrects Haymitch as he climbs out. He's not wearing a belt and he's sure he was last night. Come to think of it, where are his shoes?

Better get home and find some. "Bye piggies," he says, waggling his fingers at them before staggering off down the street.

 

 

The 76th Hunger Games arrives too quick. He's there, waiting for her at the train station when they arrive the day before the Reaping, but is surprised when only Effie Trinket steps off of the platform. "Where's Katniss?" he asks immediately. He's unnaturally worried but there can't be something wrong with her. They would have told him.

"Sleeping," she replies. "She looked very tired and I didn't want to bother her until it was absolutely necessary."

Haymitch raises an eyebrow at her. A couple of years ago Effie would never have done such a thing. She would have demanded everyone stay on schedule, follow the rules to a T. He's not sure if she's really aware of what goes on with any of them or just blindly oblivious like she seems to be but whatever goes in that head of hers, it seems she understands that the last thing Katniss needs right now is an irate Effie Trinket yelling at her about time frames.

"Effie Trinket?"

"Yes, Haymitch Abernathy?" she says back, with an amused smile, and it's a wonder she can show any emotion at all through her chalky makeup.

"I'm finding you much easier to tolerate these days."

Effie lets out a disapproving noise, as only Effie can, and smacks him on the shoulder with her hand fan. "Only you would consider that a compliment."

 

 

When Peeta Mellark ascends the stage, broad shoulders steady but eyes fearful, Haymitch cannot help the stirring inside of him. His brain tries to make a connection between the vague, fuzzy memory he feels rolling inside of his head and the blonde haired boy before him but he cannot.

Haymitch instead looks sideways at Katniss, who is frozen, hands tensed around her knees, her eyes wide as they stare into the crowd He is reminded unconsciously of the way she looked after she killed Gale. After Peeta and his fellow tribute Macy have been whisked away to where they will share their last goodbyes, it takes several nudges to rouse Katniss from her seat.

“You okay kid?” he whispers.

She nods hurriedly but he can tell she’s lying. Just like always though, they don't talk about their problems. On the train though, he decides he should try because she hasn't said a word, just been staring at Peeta who has now disappeared into his room.

Haymitch swirls his drink in the palm of his hand. “So Peeta….”

“What about Peeta?” she asks, her voice sharp. She's rubbing her wrists furiously, staring into space absentmindedly. “Katniss?” She looks down, realises what she has been doing and stops. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says but she can't hide her tone from him. “Nothing." She gets up and flies out of the carriage and Haymitch watches her leave with a sigh.

As he drains another glass, he can’t help but think that these games are going to be different.


End file.
